


Behind The Camera

by Sodalitefully



Series: Guns N Roses AUs :) [10]
Category: Guns N' Roses
Genre: Alternate Universe, Completed for now, First Dates, First Meetings, M/M, duff likes models ;), slash is a model
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28559055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sodalitefully/pseuds/Sodalitefully
Summary: Pieces of an AU where Duff is an up-and-coming rock star and Slash is a model.Duff isn’t a complicated man: he plays rock music, he drinks, and he dates models. It's not that he's shallow, he just has a weakness for pretty things, for women who leave him feeling breathless, who let him tell them over and over how beautiful they are. No one at the party has made him feel that way, until he’s introduced to male fashion model Saul Hudson.
Relationships: Duff McKagan/Slash
Series: Guns N Roses AUs :) [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2014690
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	1. Sweetness

**Author's Note:**

> I'm cross-posting this from tumblr (as usual), so expect quick updates. Atm I have two sequential chapters and a prequel snippet, so I'll upload those and then I'm not sure where I'll go from there. This chapter is another one that I originally wrote as bullet points, so I apologize if it reads a little weird :)

Anyone will tell you that Duff isn’t a complicated man: he plays rock music, he drinks, and he dates models. He’s good at it too – the band is really starting to get off the ground so he finally has a little spending money, and his last relationship (with a blonde Hungarian model/actress) just ended, so naturally he finds himself spending his Saturday night at a party with an abundance of good booze and hot chicks. 

Look, it’s not that he’s shallow… Well, not entirely. He just has a weakness for pretty things, for women who leave him feeling breathless, who let him tell them over and over how beautiful they are. No one at the party has made him feel that way, until he’s introduced to male fashion model Saul Hudson. 

Saul looks up at him through a perfect mess of curls, wearing a coy smile on his painted lips and tells him that his friends call him Slash… and that he’d like it if Duff called him Slash.

Duff barely has time to stammer through an introduction before he hears somebody call for a photo and suddenly there’s a tangle of bottle-blonde heads and spray-tanned bodies surrounding him. But the rest of the crowd may as well not exist because Slash has snatched up the prime spot, front and center in the photograph and cozied right up against Duff. The flash goes off and Duff is still blinking stars out of his eyes when he catches the smile Slash throws him over his shoulder as the model splits from the group to go chat with the photographer.

Word among the other girls is that Slash (“Oh, you mean Hudson?”) is a quiet, kinda vacant partier who’s only kept around because his mother is a designer. Duff has to privately disagree on that last part – Slash is drop-dead gorgeous, every inch of him is sensual from the gloss of his curls to the sway of his hips and once Duff laid eyes on him he could hardly tear himself away. 

As for his personality… to be determined: Slash doesn’t give much of himself away in their very brief acquaintance, but now that Duff has felt the press of Slash’s warm body against his, the brush of curls against his shoulder and the narrow waist under his palm, he can’t go without it again: by the end of the night, he’s arranged a dinner date for the very next day.

~~

Duff tries to play it cool, but he hasn’t been this excited for a date in a long while. He showers, fluffs up his hair, and spends more time than he’d like to admit picking out an outfit – what does a rockstar wear to a nice restaurant? He even cleans out his car, and pulls up at Slash’s place right on time. Slash doesn’t keep him waiting, when Duff rings the bell he’s ready to go, dressed in a pair of painted-on black jeans, a blousy top, and gold hoops, an outfit that screams _“You’re a lucky bastard and you better know it!”_ at Duff and everyone else who has the privilege of laying eyes upon him.

As hot as he is, Duff notices on their date that it takes Slash some time to warm up. When he picks him up, Slash is hiding shyly behind his hair, hanging off of Duff’s arm but hardly speaking as they enter the restaurant, sneaking looks up at Duff and biting his lower lip as if to keep the words in as they’re seated at a private table. Duff surprises himself when he realizes he finds Slash’s shyness completely adorable, and becomes determined to make his date feel as comfortable as possible.

Duff finally strikes gold over dessert: Slash is lavishing something chocolatey, so to distract himself from that perfect mouth (and his own half-hard dick), Duff starts chattering about his dogs. Everyone loves dogs right? Slash seems interested, at least, so Duff asks him if he has any pets - and suddenly, a light flicks on in Slash’s eyes. 

Twenty minutes later, Slash has finished his account of the - truly absurd - number of pets he’s had (mostly snakes, but also cats and rats and a handful of other critters), and has moved on to this cool thing his python did the other day, and an interesting fact he learned in a book about snakes, and isn’t it cute when cats do that thing with their toes? Their coffee has long gone cold (and so has Duff’s spine - snakes give him the heebie-jeebies), but Slash’s enthusiasm is sweeter than the Duff’s half-eaten bowl of melted ice cream, and Duff is eating it up with a spoon.

Duff would like nothing more than to take Slash back to his place and show him the best time he knows how, but honestly? Slash has (knowingly or not) kept Duff teetering on the edge of hot and bothered all evening and at this rate he’s afraid that he might embarrass himself in bed. So he decides to be a gentleman: he drives Slash home, and walks him to his front door - in hopes of getting at least a little action in the form of a kiss goodnight. 

Slash doesn’t disappoint; on the front step he twists in Duff’s arms so that they’re standing chest to chest, and snakes a warm hand up Duff’s shoulder to rest at the nape of his neck, fingertips lightly brushing at the brown roots of his hair. He thanks Duff for dinner, tells him that he had a good time… and that he’d like to go out again sometime. Duff can barely control his wide grin as Slash pulls him down into a kiss, soft wet lips on Duff’s, open with just a hint of tongue as a promise of more to come next time.

After the door shuts behind Slash, Duff practically skips back to his car, awash with the high of a successful date, excitement that there could be another one, and the vivid memory of Slash’s intoxicating lips. It takes him three tries to get the key in the ignition in his distracted state but he doesn’t care, nothing matters except coming up with the perfect idea for a second date.


	2. Photograph

When Slash gets home after a shoot the next day, the good-first-date glow still hasn’t worn off. 

He shoves a cassette in the deck – The Clash, who Duff mentioned were an old favorite last night. Slash had been excited to learn that they share a taste in music (of course they do, Duff is a rocker and Slash would be lying if he said that wasn’t part – a _big_ part – of why he agreed to go out with him), but at the time he couldn’t get the right words out of his head and into the air so he’d just nodded at Duff in acknowledgment and taken another bite of his dinner as the conversation veered elsewhere. 

Slash considers himself pretty good at flirting (Duff seemed to appreciate his attempts, anyway), but things always get much harder on the first date, when he’s expected to make good conversation and talk about _himself._ He hopes he didn’t scare Duff off by going on about his pets, he thinks, as he carefully lifts a snake out of her tank and lets her curl around his arm. So typical of him; it can be hard for him to share things about himself, but when he does he can’t stop himself from blurting it all out at once. The people he works with might think he’s quiet because his head is empty (the hypocrisy in that statement makes him want to laugh), but there’s always a million things on his mind that he doesn’t know how to put into words, thoughts he can only express through actions, or music… or sometimes just inarticulate rambling. 

The modeling gig did actually come about through his mother: he was looking for some steady income, she knew people who were looking for models, it turned out to be a pretty cool job so he stuck with it. He has plenty of free time, he’s invited to lots of parties, and the shoots are actually kinda fun. But still, it’s just a job. Fashion isn’t really his _thing,_ not like it is for his mom. 

_This_ is Slash in his natural state: curls bouncing in time with the music blasting from his speakers, a snake resting comfortably on his shoulders, no hairspray or glitter (well, maybe a _little_ glitter, that stuff never comes off), just ripped jeans and a beer. 

There’s just one thing missing. Slash slings his jacket off the back of the chair where he’d dropped it, then plops down on the bed to fish around in its pockets. _Aha_ – an envelope hides safely uncreased in the upper right pocket. From the envelope, Slash withdraws his prize: a single glossy photograph, passed off to him from his photographer friend just before the day’s shoot. 

In the center of the photo, Duff looks like nothing short of a hot mess. He’s wearing a stunned expression, his green eyes blown wide in a deer-in-the-headlights look that’s only accentuated by smudged black eyeliner. His lips are slightly parted, his clothes are disheveled, and a couple of the girls in the photo have their fingers twirled in his teased yellow hair, making it look even wilder than it already did. 

Next to him, Slash looks smug as a motherfucker – it took every ounce of modeling experience he had to tame his smirk into an acceptable photo smile. His chest is plastered against Duff’s side, his left arm clinging to Duff’s shoulders while his right hand rests possessively on his sternum. He was standing with his body perpendicular to the camera, so the photo captured both Slash’s proud, over-the-shoulder grin, and Duff’s long fingers resting at the small of Slash’s back. 

Slash is wearing nearly the same expression now as he beams at the photo. It’s embarrassing, really, that some bleach-blond beanpole he met at a party is making him feel like a schoolgirl with a crush, but he can’t help it: Duff is smoking hot and he was sweet as hell on their date, and rockers have always turned Slash on almost as much as their music does.

He pins the photo up in a place of honor, on the wall right next to his bed, and gives it one last lingering look before he turns around to dial up the music even louder and chug the rest of his beer. _Damn,_ he hopes Duff calls him soon.

It’s as if Slash willed the phone to ring with his wishful thinking: not two minutes later the song ends and in the quiet moment between tracks Slash realizes that the phone on his desk is ringing off the hook. He dives for the receiver, remembering at the last second to turn the music off before he picks up. 

“Hello?”

“Slash! Uh, it’s Duff, Duff McKagan, remember me? I mean, of course you do, we went out just last night… I hope I didn’t call to soon –"

Duff’s nervous rambling is endearing but Slash takes pity and cuts him off. 

“Hi, Duff,” he purrs.

“Hi! Ahem, so, uh, I had a really good time last night…”

“Me too.” Slash wonders if Duff can hear his sappy grin. 

“I’m glad! Really glad, ‘cause I was wondering if you wanted to go out again this week?”

Slash bites down on his lip and tries to curb his bubbling excitement. “Yeah, I’d love to.“

“Okay, great! I was thinking… I’m not sure if this is your scene or not but I thought I might as well ask, and anyway my band has a gig on Thursday night and I thought maybe we could get dinner together beforehand and then I could take you to the show?” Duff finishes the sentence in a nervous rush. 

If only Duff could see the way Slash lights up. "Yeah! Yeah, that sounds good to me.”

“Okay, awesome! Alright, um, I’ll pick you up at seven?”

“I’ll see you then.”

The phone line clicks and a giddy laugh escapes Slash’s lips. A second date with Duff, and a chance to see his band play? He couldn’t fuckin’ _wait. ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be a little prequel drabble, not a sequential follow-up to the first two chapters.


	3. Prints (Interlude)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short prequel to the Model!Slash universe.

“Ola, I just got the prints from your son’s shoot, I’m looking at them right now and _Oh My God_ you have to see these. There’s no way he’s never done this before, have you been teaching him how to pose?”

She hadn’t, Slash had never expressed any interest in modeling before this. Honestly, Ola hadn’t been sure if setting her son up with a modeling gig would turn out well – Slash had the looks for fashion, sure, but not so much the attitude.

A couple days later, a manilla envelope full of photos arrived at the Hudson household. Slash wasn’t home so Ola opened it up to take a look and – Oh, _wow._ That’s not what she expected. 

Sultry looks cast over bare shoulders, a perfectly coy pout, curls cascading luxuriously down his golden back… If anything, the poses were too _over-the-top_ but it was certainly effective, it made the viewer want to reach into the photo and touch. Needless to say, this was not what she expected from her 19-year-old son, who never showed an ounce of interest in, shall we say, _embracing his feminine side._ Agreeing to a modeling gig for some extra cash was one thing, making bedroom eyes at the camera in every shot was another. 

The front door slammed and Ola recognized the sound of her older son kicking off his shoes in the hallway. “Saul!” She called him into the living room and grinned at him when he shuffled through the doorway. “The prints from your shoot came in today.”

He winced in embarrassment, burying a hand in his hair and shuffling like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to get closer and see his work. “… Didja already look at ‘em?”

“You know I did.” She spreads the photos across the coffee table. “Where did all _this_ come from baby? The photographer already called me asking if I gave you pointers, needless to say she’s interested in working with you again. I told her I’d have to ask you if this was gonna be a one time thing or not but based on these pictures I bet there’s more where that came from, hm?”

Slash looked like he would melt into the floor if he could, but Ola caught a hint of a proud smile through the curtain of hair. “I don’t know, I wasn’t doing anything special… So, are they good then?“

“Are you kidding? I know it’s not lead guitar… but I think you have a good shot at making a career out of this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Might do more with this universe, might not, we'll see what happens. Thanks for reading!


End file.
